The Socio-Technical Risk Analysis (SoTeRiA) Research Laboratory has received a $1,000,000 award from the Department of Energy’s U.S. Industry Opportunities for Advanced Nuclear Technology Development Program (2022-2024).
NPRE Associate Professor Zahra Mohaghegh is the UIUC PI for the project, and is joined by several other Co-PIs from the SoTeRiA Research Laboratory: Research Assistant Professor Tatsuya Sakurahara, Senior Research Scientist Seyed Reihani, Research Scientists Pegah Farshadmanesh and Ha Bui, and Research Associates Ernie Kee and Amir Afzali.
This research is a collaboration with Constellation Energy Generation (Suzanne Loyd, Jeffrey Stone, James Landale, Nina Lacome) and Idaho National Laboratory (Chandrakanth Bolisetti, Cody Permann). The project also benefits from in-kind collaborators from Southern Company (Brandon Chisholm), Electric Power Research Institute (Eric Thornsbury), and X-Energy (Huafei Liao, Glen Lawson).
In this project titled “Simulation-informed Dependency Treatment to Enhance Operational Flexibility, Avoid Production Loss, and Maintain Safety of Operating Plants and Advanced Reactors”, the team will develop a technology-inclusive risk-informed solution applicable to both operating plants and advanced reactors.
The core of the methodology is the Simulation-informed, Probabilistic (SIP) approach, developed by Mohaghegh and her team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). This methodology will be advanced for existing plants and new reactors, in collaboration with all Co-PIs from the industry and national lab. The SoTeRiA team is excited about this project and looking forward to working with collaborators to address this critical need.